The Final Fantasy VII Rebirth story changes were made to sustain player interest over time
Both Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth feature some significant story changes compared to the original release. As Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi told Game Developer, adding the new interpretation of the story was deliberate to maintain player interest over time, considering that this remake treatment of Final Fantasy VII is split into three parts.
"We want to keep the players' interest in our game, but in order to do that, we can't simply just add new elements, that won't be enough," Hamaguchi said during an interview at Tokyo Game Show. "We wanted to add a new interpretation to the story, entirely new story elements, things like that to, again, sustain the player interest and have players look forward and be curious to the conclusion of the remake trilogy."
When working on a remake, Hamaguchi said he first tries to think what the original players have in mind. In this case, what they loved about Final Fantasy VII. There are parts he didn't want to alter or change and decided to keep as is, but there were others that the team wanted to create something new for the modern generation of players.
Still, there are clear expectations in mind, which the team took into consideration to preserve that interest. For context, Final Fantasy VII launched in April 2020, with Rebirth following in 2024. Via IGN, Square Enix said that the company is hoping to ready the third and final installment by 2027.
About Aerith..."Obviously, when we look at Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, I think a lot of users were interested to find out what's gonna happen to Aerith and her fate," Hamaguchi said. "So because of that, we tried to create a game and depict the story in a way where players won't be able to tell what's going to happen to Aerith until the very end."
Now, with the team working on the third entry, the director thinks that players will be interested in knowing what's going to happen with Meteor, for example, as well as the overall conclusion. When asked if retaining player interest was a motivation for the boldest changes to the story, Hamaguchi said that it's hard to describe it as is. Rather, it was about ensuring success.
"The key for this project to succeed is to determine what kind of changes we would want to bring in order to sustain the player interest throughout the remake trilogy," he said. "Without determining where we want to change some things up in terms of the story, it's kind of hard to ensure that the project succeeds, not just Remake and Rebirth, but the entire remake trilogy. So we're sort of trying to push boundaries in that sense and trying to figure out what kind of bold changes we can bring to the story, but we're also trying to make careful decisions around that."
